


something rich and strange

by Waywarder



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Theatre, Crowley is Excited About Ducks, First Kiss, References to Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: “Break a leg, Crowley,” Aziraphale touched his arm ever so softly and Crowley thought he might melt right into the dingy old theatre carpet.Nobody ever wished the assistant stage manager “Break a leg.”Crowley is good at assistant stage managing: lurking in the shadows and handling blood and daggers and pining after the actor Aziraphale Fell.His ability to lock his feelings away is rather tested on a Yuletide road gig to a fancy hotel with some interesting residents.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 94
Collections: Holly Jolly July: a Good Omens Gift Exchange





	something rich and strange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tiny_Dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Dragongirl/gifts).



> For rogueholmes/Tiny_Dragongirl! Happy Christmas in July!

_ That summer: a tempestuous noise _

“What?” Crowley snarled helplessly in the dark into his headset. The stage manager always sounded like absolutely garbled nonsense on that stupid thing but, dammit, they had a show to call.

It was opening night, after all.

“What?” Crowley asked again, pre-show nerves twisting his insides.

The once-terribly-important-matter-of-”What?” faded away entirely as the show’s star wandered past him and offered him the most radiant smile he’d ever seen. 

“Break a leg, Crowley,” Aziraphale touched his arm ever so softly and Crowley thought he might melt right into the dingy old theatre carpet. 

Nobody ever wished the assistant stage manager “Break a leg.” But, then, Aziraphale Fell wasn't nobody.

Crowley nodded back and tried not to sigh out loud as Aziraphale walked out of sight, disappearing into the dressing room. Another patchy bit of headset-cacophany assaulted Crowley's ears.

“I DO NOT COPY YOU,” he snapped, furiously. 

“5 minute warning!” Beez snapped right back, suddenly clear as a bell. Crowley pictured them up in the light booth, flailing their arms and cursing his name.

“Well, gee, thank you, five,” Crowley answered, sarcastically. 

“Go to hell, Crowley.”

“Already here.”

Crowley hadn’t intended to end up in a life backstage, but he’d always hung around weirdo performer kids and he looked great in black, so he wasn’t positive of what else he was even remotely qualified for. And being behind-the-scenes at a Shakespeare company was pretty cool. Lots of blood, lots of daggers, lots of skulls.

(Big spooky fan, him.)

It wasn’t a bad life, really. Crowley lurked in the shadows, he handed off props, he growled at actors who dared step out of line, and he pined after Aziraphale Fell. 

Fine. Great. Perfect. Wonderful, even.

“2 minute warning,” said Beez’s garbled voice into his ear.

“Thank you, 2,” he answered on auto pilot. Aziraphale had walked back into view, fretting and adjusting his costume.

“Here,” Crowley said, striding forward in a sudden fit of madness and/or bravery. (The two are so awfully alike.) 

“Oh,” Aziraphale sighed in relief as Crowley reached forward to straighten and smooth his wings. “Oh, thank you.”

“‘S my pleasure,” Crowley mumbled, because it was true. That was something else he liked about life backstage. He liked to help. 

“Are you ready for places?” Beez squawked into the headset.

Crowley dared looking up into Aziraphale’s eyes. They were an ever shifting ocean of blues and grays and greens, of calms and storms and shipwrecks and rescues. With those wings attached to his back, he defied all mere Shakesperean spirits.

He looked like an angel.

“Ready,” Crowley whispered, heat creeping over his cheeks as Aziraphale looked back at him. They were so close he imagined he could hear Aziraphale’s heart beating as wildly as his own. 

“What?!” Beez asked, ferociously. 

“READY!” Crowley barked, his touching backstage moment thoroughly ruined.

“All right, places, you lot!” he clapped his hands together and shouted at the assembly of actors backstage. He turned back to Aziraphale, feeling suddenly rather helpless. 

“Break a leg, Aziraphale,” he said again, wishing he could reach out and touch those wings one more time. For luck, maybe? For hope?

As the backstage lights dimmed, Aziraphale rewarded him with a nervous head dip and smile before he ascended the backstage staircase, getting ready for his first entrance.

“Go thunder and lightning,” came Beez’s voice over the headset.

Crowley scrambled down to Hell, as the company referred to the space beneath the stage. He picked up the mallet of the thunder drum and began to bang like mad, grateful for the distraction.

Later on, Crowley pretended to be set early for a quick change so that he could lean against the backstage wall and watch Aziraphale.

“ _I come to answer thy best pleasure,_ ” Aziraphale-as-Ariel said to Prospero, and Crowley tried not to blush at all the potential interpretations of that line.

Later still, Aziraphale-as-Ariel sang and Crowley was quite appropriately enchanted:

_Come unto these yellow sands,  
And then take hands:  
Courtsied when you have and kiss'd  
The wild waves whist,  
Foot it featly here and there;  
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.  
Hark, hark!_

Crowley leaned his head against the backstage wall and imagined an opening night party where he was free to take hands with Aziraphale Fell. 

_ On December four and twenty. (fum fum fum) _

What do classically trained Shakespearean actors do at Christmastime?

They pile into an old van and travel around the county singing Christmas carols, that’s what they do. (They’re tragically capable of very little else, I’m sorry to report.) 

Aziraphale & the Angels, as they called the merry little band during the holidays, was booked for some awful corporate party at a fancy hotel and it was Crowley’s job to get them there in one piece. They had an equally terrible gig bright and early the next morning, so the one saving grace of the stupid trip was they were being put up overnight in said-fancy hotel. Crowley looked forward to sleeping as long and as hard as he could possibly manage. 

Because he was grouchy. He’d already heard “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” more times than he thought he could stand. Gabriel, however, had insisted on sitting up front and leading the group in warm-ups and practices for the entire bloody drive. 

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel chided. “I think you’re a little flat.”

Crowley caught Aziraphale’s eyes in the mirror. He couldn’t stand to see those beautiful ocean eyes downcast in sadness.

“Maybe you were a little sharp, Gabe,” Crowley suggested, casually, desperate to rescue Aziraphale from any sort of harm. 

“Just drive the van, Crowley,” Gabriel shot him a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Crowley looked back into the mirror to see Aziraphale gazing back at him. He liked to believe he detected gratitude shining out of those eyes. 

“From the top,” Gabriel snapped his fingers. “5, 6, 7, 8.”

Crowley swallowed down a groan. Let nothing you dismay, indeed. 

***

The hotel lobby was resplendent in holiday decorations, greens and reds and golds everywhere you turned. But there was something else rather particular about this hotel lobby. Crowley snatched his glasses off his face, hardly daring to believe his eyes.

“Are those…” Gabriel began.

“Ducks!” Crowley shouted in delight. The Angels all stared at him in surprise and a little judgment. They’d never heard Crowley shout in delight before, but, I mean, come on:

There were DUCKS in the hotel lobby.

Crowley gaped at them. Actual, real-life ducks just wandering through the lobby, some of them swimming around in the glorious fountain in the center of the room. Crowley wondered if he was allowed to pet them. Could he feed them? 

DUCKS.

“Crowley?” Michael asked. “Aren’t you going to check us in?”

Crowley whirled back to look at them all in disbelief. Why didn’t they understand how exciting it was to be in a hotel lobby with ducks? Only Aziraphale looked back at him with kindness in his eyes.

“I can get us checked in, Crowley,” Aziraphale offered, his voice warm with understanding. “Go and see the ducks.”

Gabriel and Michael scoffed at the idea, turning back towards the front desk. Crowley didn’t even care. Aziraphale didn’t think he was ridiculous for wanting to visit the ducks and that was plenty.

There they were, after all. Practically stranded together at a fancy hotel (with DUCKS) over Christmas Eve. Maybe it was finally time. 

The gig that night didn’t end until close to 11 pm, but the lobby bar was still alive and kicking. Crowley watched Aziraphale pose for picture after picture with the drunk partygoers.

_Ask him to stay up for a drink with you._

Crowley opened his mouth but shut it quickly again at the sight of Aziraphale yawning. He balled his hands up into fists by his sides, willing himself to settle down.

It wasn’t the right time. Aziraphale was tired.

Maybe it would never be the right time.

“Good night, Crowley,” Aziraphale said and his voice sounded a little sad. 

_Well, of course. It’s the holidays and he’s stuck with you._

All night, Crowley tossed and turned in his hotel bed. It was something like torture, being this close to Aziraphale without being able to tell him how he felt. Surely the man _knew._ Crowley’s dark glasses were hardly enough to cover up the adoration in his face whenever he looked at Aziraphale. Yes, Aziraphale must know and that made it worse. Months and months of knowing and of nothing happening. If he’d felt the same way, he’d have done something by now, right? 

Right?

Crowley swore, hoping to be louder than the miserable rumbling in his heart, and got out of bed. 

He wasn’t waiting until morning to see the ducks again. 

Crowley took the elevator down to the lobby, hoping no one else was around to watch him mope in the company of the ducks. When he wandered into the quiet, decorated space, he nearly swore out loud at the sight of someone else sitting by the great fountain in the center. He quickly realized, though:

“Happy Christmas, Crowley,” said the light blue pajama-clad object of Crowley’s affections.

Crowley froze, completely unprepared for the reality of being alone in a fancy hotel lobby with Aziraphale and ducks during the earliest hours of Christmastime. 

“Gabriel snores,” Aziraphale offered as his own explanation for his 3 am lobby rendezvous. 

Crowley shook his head in sympathy before being struck by a truly terrifying idea.

“You can stay in my room,” he suggested, doing his absolute best to keep his voice casual. “If you like.”

Aziraphale looked up at him at first in surprise and then in something like wonder. He gently patted the space beside him and Crowley (terrified) took it. 

“A first Christmas day drink?” Aziraphale asked, revealing two small bottles of wine beside him, clearly lifted from the hotel’s mini fridge.

“You actually paid for those?” Crowley wrinkled his nose at the idea of how expensive the two stupid bottles must have been.

“Oh,” Aziraphale blushed and looked away, busying himself with unscrewing the caps. “Well, I simply had them added to the company’s tab.”

“You what?” Crowley’s eyes shot up, amazed and impressed. 

“Cheers,” Aziraphale handed a tiny bottle to Crowley. Crowley fought the urge to sigh out loud as their fingers brushed in the transfer. 

“Do you remember the first show we worked on together, my dear?” Aziraphale asked.

“ _The Tempest,_ ” Crowley answered right away. He’d never forget it. “You were excellent.”

Aziraphale blushed a little. “Thank you, Crowley.”

They drank in silence for a moment, looking out on the Yuletide decorations and the ducks. 

“Will you indulge me in something, Crowley?”

( _Let your indulgence set me free._ )

“Anything, Aziraphale.” Because that was true.

Aziraphale turned to look at him, a glimmer of mischief in those remarkable eyes. “Speaking of _The Tempest,_ I think I’d like to take a crack at playing Stephano. Would you be my Trinculo tonight?”

Crowley wasn’t certain he remembered all the lines, but he’d be damned before he failed Aziraphale.

“ _Here,_ ” Aziraphale began, adopting a bit of a gruff swagger to his normally posh voice. “ _Swear then how thou escapedst._ ”

“ _Swum ashore, man,_ ” Crowley drawled, thrilled to discover he remembered the dialogue. “ _Like a duck. I can swim like a duck, I’ll be sworn._ ”

“ _Here,_ ” Aziraphale recited again, twisting a little in his seat to face Crowley more directly. He lifted his little bottle of wine toward Crowley’s face. “ _Kiss the book._ ”

Crowley met Aziraphale’s eyes with a bit of alarm. Aziraphale’s lips twitched just enough to betray his own nerves, but his eyes were steadfast and constant. The ocean after a storm. Crowley kept his eyes on Aziraphale’s as he lowered his head down to place his lips softly upon the bottle, upon the tips of Aziraphale’s fingers. He pulled away, feeling an immediate need to apologize for something, for anything, for everything.

“‘M not much of an actor myself,” he murmured. 

“Perhaps you just need more practice, my dear,” Aziraphale suggested kindly. Aziraphale rose to his feet and offered Crowley a hand. Crowley took it and swayed to his own feet.

“ _Here,_ ” Aziraphale said once more, his gaze darting meaningfully down to Crowley’s lips.

_Here I am. Here I’ve always been. I was nervous too. Be brave with me tonight._

“ _Kiss the book._ ”

If Crowley had been more of a poet, he might have said something like, "You are my book. You are every good story over the course of human history. You deserve to be bound in the finest leather and stamped with the most glorious golden title: Aziraphale."

Instead Crowley lifted his hands to Aziraphale’s face and closed the distance between them, kissing him deeply. 

“I hope I’m not too late in this, my dear,” Aziraphale confessed, pulling away briefly.

With ducks at their feet and holly and ivy above their heads and overpriced hotel wine on their lips, Crowley quite felt that all the waiting had been worth it.

“No, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, drawing his fingers over the soft hairs at the back of Aziraphale’s neck. “It’s perfect timing.”

And they did eventually retreat to Crowley’s room there they ordered a truly stupid amount of room service on the company’s dime and laughed merrily over swapped stories of how long each had adored the other but had been too nervous to say anything. 

But first: more kissing and more ducks. 

_O brave new world._


End file.
